Derwent Island is one of our most fascinating treasures. The 18th Century house on this little wooded island makes this the only inhabited island in the Lake District which opens to visitors.
Derwent Island is the only inhabited island on the lake. Once owned by the monks of Fountains Abbey, it was the home of German miners working in the area in Elizabethan times.
The island and its house, which was considered by Wordsworth to be a blot on the landscape, has, since the 1950’s, been in the ownership of the National Trust.
The house is lived in all year round but open to the public for five days every year, giving you the wonderful opportunity to have a look around the house and garden, find out about island life past and present and imagine yourself living in a house which must have one of the most beautiful commutes to the shops in the country!
